Trouble On A Plane - Final Screening copy delivered

Today was the last day to deliver the final screening copy of 'Trouble On A Plane' to UCLA. This will be the version that will be screened on the huge screen at the Bridges Theater on campus, on Sunday, October 19th. I spent the last few days going back and forth with the color correction. As I had said before, the color corrected version of the film looked great on my TV screen but was super grainy on the bigger screen in class. After talking to Marq Lee, I found out that it wasn't a grain issue, but a noise one, which is typical when a film is very dark and you try to brighten it up. Marq and I got together Sunday morning and tested out both versions on his new projector. Both looked good, but you could tell that the non color corrected version was slightly sharper than the other one. So I took the decision to deliver the film as is. No color correction, except for the close-up shots of James, which were standing out from the rest because they were so bright. In other words, those were the only shots I really had an issue with.

Now it's time for the festival submissions, which is freakin' overwhelming. It is scary the number of festivals that are out there. Which ones to choose, which ones should I send my movie to? If they were all free, I would send it to all of them. Unfortunately, most American festivals require submission fees which can be to $70 (yep, Sundance charges $70 just to send in your film). Most European festivals, however, are free, which is great. But you still need to burn DVDs, buy big envelopes, there's mailing costs involved, ... There are, however, cheap alternatives. I just discovered a film festival submission website which lets you upload up to three short films for free. They work together with several good festivals around the world, who, when you submit your movie to them, can view your film directly on that website! Result, no more DVDs, mailing costs and no more paperwork to be printed out! Welcome to the 21st century!